How to turn on Radeon integer scaling and beautify your retro games

If you paid attention in math class, you’ll remember that an integer is a whole number. What does this have to do with GPU graphics? With Radeon Integer Scaling, pixels are multiplied by whole numbers—giving low-resolution visuals a high-resolution boost. This comes paired with better performance, too. Not a bad equation! Today we’ll show you how easy it is to activate it on Radeon GPUs for results that even your old high school math teacher would be impressed by! 

How to turn on Radeon Integer Scaling

Turning it on is simple. You’ll want to make sure you are on the latest AMD Radeon Adrenaline Software. You’ll also need at least an AMD HD 7000 Series or above.

Thiago Trevisan/IDG

Next, open settings on the upper right. From here, you’ll navigate to the Display submenu. You’ll see a list of supported features—including Integer Scaling. It’s important to first enable GPU Scaling above it, or else it will read “unsupported.”

After enabling both, it will be globally activated. If you want, you can go in to individual gaming profiles and select integer scaling for a specific game or application instead, for more granular control.

Why use Radeon Integer Scaling?

Now that you know how to turn on it, we’ll tell you why it can be useful. Do you like playing old-school games that came way before 4K resolution was a thing? This can take those games and upscale them to look great on your modern, higher-resolution monitor. It will give them a cleaner, sharper look instead of the usual low-resolution scaling.

It will make text on older titles much easier to read, too. Keep in mind it’s not perfect; it may not scale up fully to cover your screen like a newer game would. It’s not all about old-school games, either. On slower hardware and newer games, you can benefit from this visual boost without performance penalties. This allows you to have a cleaner, sharper image where your graphics card would traditionally struggle.

Removing some blurry details can have a huge impact when using a higher-resolution screen with a less powerful GPU even if it’s not at its native resolution. See, paying attention in math class does have some real-world applications!